The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

On the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Full Show Podcast for Sunday 14 June 2026, Succession star Brian Cox is proving you are never too old to try something new. At the ripe old age of 79 he's directed his first film, he tells Francesca about the experience and he tells us the impact of playing media magnate Logan Roy.
Harry McNaughton started out as an 18 year old on Shortland Street but now plies his trade behind the scene championing Kiwi screen projects. He talks to Francesca about how the NZ screen industry doesn't get enough credit and his new project Head Girl.
Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong is making a play for Parliament through the Mt Albert electorate. She tells Francesca it doesn't change her focus on getting the party past the 5 percent threshold.
Elon Musk is the world's first trillionaire - Francesca asks the question, what's next for SpaceX and Musk himself.
And AI has created its first vaccine and it is now being tested on humans, Dr Michelle Dickinson has all the details.
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Harry McNaughton first appeared on Kiwi TV screens as an 18-year-old, playing receptionist Gerald Tippet on Shorty St.
Since then, he's built up a presence on the other side of the camera, having worked on other New Zealand TV shows like The Pact, Madam, Under the Vines, and The Sounds.
His new show is set to arrive on Three soon - it's called Head Girl and McNaughton is the co-creator and writer.
"If I'm working as a showrunner, particularly if I'm a writer-creator who's on set and who's filling more of a producer role, then the benefit of that is that you can have people at any stage go - this doesn't feel like it's working, or you can see that it's not working...being able to change that is hugely helpful."
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Actor Brian Cox has taken on a significant array of films, but the 79-year-old Succession star is making his directorial debut.
Glenrothan has been described as a 'love letter to Scotland' and it's in cinemas this week.
He says he never intended to direct a film, but his producer gave him the idea to take on this project.
"I'm not particularly visual as a person... I realised I'd have to get myself a bloody good DP, which I did - Jaime Ackroyd, whose father is also an excellent DP - he did a wonderful job."
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Land by Maggie O’Farrell. This is set in Ireland a few years after the potato famine, known as the Great Hunger, and follows the story of Tomás and his young son Liam who are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. They stumble across a spring - a source of water with seemingly magical properties which completely changes Tomás and sets a series of events in play which will have permanent impacts on his family. The story of this book is essentially the story of Ireland - it ranges across many years and many of the formative events in the country’s history - famine, colonisation, Catholicism - and the effects on people over all those years.
On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah. On the day her daughter leaves home, Annie’s husband tells her he’s fallen for a younger woman and their marriage is over. Devastated, she goes back to Mystic, the town where she grew up, to start to rebuild her life, and where she reconnects with a man who was her first love. Of course though, nothing is straightforward. Kristin Hannah writes terrific character lead fiction, being most well known recently for her wonderful book The Women.
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The 'Grandma experience' is gaining popularity among travellers of all ages -but what is it, exactly?
The trend refers to actively seeking out traditional analogue experiences from the older generation, including nonna-led pasta classes or the 63-year-old Parisian woman who teaches Macaron classes.
GetYourGuide’s platform says bookings for workshops and classes have increased by more than 250 percent between 2023 and 2025, significantly outperforming traditional attraction tickets.
Megan Singleton explains the impacts of this new travel trend.
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